L,\WL()ii — yolcs on *S7. licniarfVii fji/c of St. Maldchi/. 249 



Vita, %% 07-70. We coiiio lioro to St. Malacliy's last journey. It began 

 after the eouclusion of a council which, as the Four Masters inform us, was 

 held in the year 1148 on the island off Skerries, Co. Dublin, still known as 

 Inispatrick. The reader of St. Bernard would suppose that it took place in 

 the neighbuurliood of Bangor, from which Mulachy obviously starteil on his 

 voyage to Scotland. Ijut tiiis is an example of St. Bernard'.s ignorance of 

 Irish geography, of which we shall soon have further proof. Skeri'ies is about 

 100 miles from Bangor ; and the journey cannot have begun earlier than a 

 week after the council. St. Mulachy reached Clairvaux " four or five days '' 

 before the festival of St. Luke (18 Oct.), i.e. Vd or 14 October. He had been 

 separated from his companions in Eugland,i and travelled alone and apparently 

 on horseback (§ 36). His journey from tlie coast may therefore have been 

 more rapid than usual. But it is to be noted that his companions apparently 

 overtook him at Clairvaux on 17 October. They probably crossed the 

 Channel on 30 September, and Malachy about the same time, perhaps from a 

 different port. 



King Stephen refused to allow Malachy to cross to France, and he was in 

 consequence detained for a considerable time in England. It seems possible 

 to determine approximately the date of his arrival at the English coast from 

 the following statement of St. Jiernard (§ 69): — 



" Departing thence [i.e. from Gisburn] he came to the sea, but was refused 

 passage. ... If he had immediately passed over the sea, he would have been 

 obliged also to pass by Clairvaux in order to follow the chief pontiff. For by 

 that time he had left it and was at or near Eome." 



We must recur to this passage at a later stage. Here it is sufficient to 

 say that the latter part of it is incorrect. I'ope Eugenius was not near Fiome 

 till 30 November, when he reached Viterbo, having left Siena only the previous 

 day. St. Bernard must have calculated the date of his arrival at Kome, on the 

 supposition that he would proceed thither at the leisurely rate at which he 

 advanced in the earlier stages of the journey. He left Clairvaux on 27 April, 

 and Lausanne, 167 miles on the road, on or soon after 20 May.- Thus he 

 accomplished nearly a quarter of the way to Rome in twenty-three days. The 

 whole distance would have taken rather more than three months. He might 

 therefore have been expected to arrive at Eome by the end of July. By that 

 time, then, we may conjecture that Malacliy was on the coast of Kent. The 

 previous part of his journey was evidently slow. On his lirst tlay in Scotland 



Italian towu, perhaps Ivrea, for Kaster. If so, the dates for the remainder of the journey 

 must be advanced some days. On the hypothesis as to his rate of travel assumed in the 

 text, he would have left Rome shortly after the octave of Pentecost. 

 ' ib'tJ'm. i in liuiis. Mai., § 1. ■ Jatie, p. 63-1. 



